


Fever

by aine_clover



Series: What if? GWTW [2]
Category: Gone With the Wind - All Media Types, Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:55:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22571338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aine_clover/pseuds/aine_clover
Summary: What if Ashley had only held Scarlett because she tripped from a fever?A one-shot to soothe the hurt of the most bittersweet love story I know.
Relationships: Rhett Butler/Scarlett O'Hara
Series: What if? GWTW [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1624156
Comments: 9
Kudos: 95





	Fever

Ashley had only caught her because she had stumbled. 

That had been the honest fact of the matter.

And although Scarlett was happy to have his hands on her, she certainly wouldn’t wear it as though it were a clever ploy or a clandestine moment. 

She had had a low burning fever which ran down her over the previous days. She didn’t want to call Doctor Mead. She didn’t like being sick. Scarlett was strong and staunch, and she did not become ill. She’d made a promise to God on that red earth hill, radish in hand, that she would look after her folk. An unwell Scarlett couldn’t do any of that, so she had considered it best to keep it to herself. Think about it tomorrow. Ignore it as best she could, just as she did with all her pregnancies. She had bitterly considered that at least she was sure that she wasn’t pregnant by the infuriating Rhett Butler, though she could not be sure that the other half of Atlanta wasn’t. 

She had been nauseous and therefore, not eating. She couldn’t even stand the sight of food, her stomach feeling as though it were being squeezed by strong hands inside her gut at even the hint of a hot meal.

So, it had been nothing more than a light-headed moment that Ashley had caught her, her feet falling from beneath her as she walked. 

When she saw India, her mouth practically frothing like a rabid dog at the view, Scarlett had felt her heart sink.

“I’ll explain,” Ashley had said but she didn’t feel hopeful that he would be able to do so. 

She had taken herself to bed when she got home, unable to stay upright for much longer. She had changed and abandoned her clothes behind her, clambering into her bed and laying down with a grateful sigh. 

She had slept for the rest of the day. 

The knock roused her. Her eyes had groggily opened and she felt the stick of sweat touch her. Baby hairs curled to her damp forehead and she felt the tingle of cough quietly vibrate in her chest.

“Who is it?” she called, her voice sounding croaky to her ears. Her throat stuck to itself, her head feeling too full and heavy to lift.

“Just your husband."

She paused, letting her head rest against the pillow once more.

“Come in.”

He entered but she let her heavy lids closed, blocking out the spill of light that entered with Rhett. 

“I’m I actually being invited into the sanctuary?” he teased, voice sounding light and carefree. She let a small smile twitch her lips at his joke, eyes remaining shut. “You’re not ready for Meanie's party!” 

“I feel just terrible Rhett,” she murmured. “You go without me and make my excuses to Melanie.”

“What a white livered little coward, aren't you,” he growled. 

Her eyes opened slowly, and she glanced across him. He was so angry, glaring down at her. His impossible hight seemed to reach all the way to the ceiling as his dark eyes glared down at her as though he were Devil himself. He looked vengeful and angry, taking her in with a mix of rage and disgust. 

“Rhett,” she tried to begin.

He snatched the blankets from her and she looked up once, irritated at him. Of course, he’d heard. Everyone spoke so freely about such nonsense in Atlanta, and she felt a stab of hatred towards it all at that moment 

“Get up,” he snapped, oblivious to her swirling excuses and explanations. “You’re going to that party and you’ll have to hurry.” 

She began to formulate a response but paused, unable to focus her eyes long enough to make her point. 

She heard him lecture her, something about India and Ashley, that he knew. She had scowled, but sat up slowly, feeling her body move in a way that hurt her. Her joints ached, her chest was heavy, the breath feeling laboured. 

In hindsight, it was a miracle she hadn’t fainted in Ashley’s arms. 

“India is a little rat-”

“Get up Scarlett,” Rhett interrupted sharply. He pulled her upwards, hands gripping her arms, his anger blinding him to the sallow quality of her skin, the sweat that pricked beneath his fingertips. He picked her up, lecturing her about Bonnie, about showing face, before shoving her from the bed. She stumbled, her ankles aching beneath her. Everything ached. She looked back to see him pulling dress from the wardrobe. He selected a garish red one and ordered Mammy to squeeze her into it. 

Scarlett hadn’t put up a fight as he expected. She had sat and been preened to perfection. He wondered quietly if perhaps she had finally learned to listen to him, but had then sneered at himself for thinking such foolish things. He waited downstairs, angrily imagining tossing her into the awaiting Lions, her humiliation doubled to have to stand alone. 

Mammy had noticed Scarlett was so flushed she hadn’t needed any blush at all. 

Scarlett sat beside him in the buggy and Rhett anger dissipated when her chin dipped to her chest several times, her body struggling to stay upright against the unrelenting bump of the buggy beneath her. 

“Scarlett?”

She looked up, eyelids heavy, and he saw the sweat pearling against her forehead. He pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to her. She dabbed at it, and he noted that perspiration was running down her neck, her chest.

“Are you unwell?” He asked.

“I told you,” she bit irritably, a small cough interrupting her. 

He grimaced at her tone as she looked away, unsteady for a moment.

“If you are actually unwell,” he said carefully. “You’ll need to show your face, Scarlett.”

She nodded, understanding his point, strangely touched that he finally believed her. 

She had clung to him for dear life when they entered the party, eyes downcast and lids heavy. 

Rhett watched the room take in his sickly wife, her hands crushed to his arm as she steadied herself under each step. The gossiping gazes quickly dissipated, a discomfort that perhaps Ashley’s explanation that Scarlett had tripped as she was unwell much more likely than India’s fanciful tale of an affair interrupted.

“My my Scarlett,” Melly said softly, worriedly looking over her friend. “You look terribly unwell.”

“I am,” Scarlett said quietly, resentment rolling off of her in waves. “But we needed to come for Ashley’s birthday.” 

“Well thank you, Scarlett,” Melly said kindly, her hands pressed to Scarlett’s.

Rhett had sat her down as soon as he could, and she had pressed herself against him, shoulder digging into his arm as she did her best to keep her eyes open. He passed her his handkerchief once more and she had diligently dabbed at her perspiring skin. She let out several pathetic coughs, her body too tired to properly force the air from her. She smothered them all with his handkerchief, alternating between keeping her eyes closed and looking at her shoes. Usually, she would gossip or talk, dance and sing. Scarlett never one to keep her ears or mouth shut of any news. She thrived as the centre of attention, the beautiful belle of the ball he had met at Twelve Oaks all those years ago thrilled to once again rear its beautiful yet beastly head. Instead, she was silent and still, save for the rumbling coughs that left her, her hand pressed hard to the seat beside her to balance her body. 

“I feel awful Rhett,” she had complained pitifully within the hour of their arrival.

“Doctor Mead,” Rhett had called, gesturing the older gentleman. 

Doctor Mead’s hands worried her, taking in her sweating skin and unsteady gaze. Rhett watched the party, carefully observing the interaction and perhaps for the first time in his life understood the strange and constant scrutiny his wife so often complained of. Here she was, looking like the walking wounded, and instead of sympathy and tea, she was met by careful, suspicious, considering eyes. 

“I think a simple influenza,” Doctor Mead told Rhett, his voice booming. Rhett watched several at the party nod to one another as if their agreement was diagnosis enough. “Rest, broth, and water, a cold flannel for the fever, no stress.”

Rhett suspected the last part of that sentences was directed at him.

He nodded and made their excuses, his arm about Scarlett as he took her form the party. She was asleep on his shoulder by the time they got home, and he had carried her into the house.

She woke up drowsily when he put her down on the bed, her hand holding the frame to keep herself upright as he undressed her sweating body. He heard her sigh out in relief when the fabric peeled away. He felt the pull of the material against her skin as he took off her undergarments, frowning to see pools of perspiration inching against them. She must have been desperately uncomfortable at the party. Her entire body was peaky, flushed and perspiring and he dryly thought to himself that it was the first time he had seen her in a state of undress since she had banished him. The dress and garments pooled at the end of her feet and he tossed it over the nearby lounge as he retrieved a fresh chemise from her drawers. She was exhausted, head dropping forward once more as he pulled it over her head. She looked up at him, eyes unfocused as he slowly lifted her onto the bed, pulling off her shoes and stockings. He called Prissy to bring a bowl of water and cloth. 

He had it laid by her and to his surprise, dipped in the fabric to the water and slowly rubbed it over her skin. 

She sighed out heavily when the water touched her burning skin, smiling in soft relief.

“Thank you,” She murmured. 

“Would you like me to sleep here, Scarlett?”

He regretted it as soon as she said it but her immediate answer silenced that.

“Yes please.”

She was too hot to hold so instead he had laid in his night things parallel to her, his arm above her head as he slowly mopped the sweat off of her forehead once more. She drifted in and out of consciousness, her skin burning hotter and hotter beneath his ministrations. 

“I am sorry Scarlett.”

Her eyes fluttered open and she looked up at him, brows pulled together in confusion.

“I should have believed you were unwell.”

Her eyes were unseeing, struggling to focus on him and she sighed, her head lolling on the pillow. 

“Well…” she sighed. “Thank you, Ashley.”

He stared at her answer, realising she was delirious as she lay her head back. He hesitated before continuing to mop her skin once more.

“Here I am,” she sighed, sounding almost childlike, her voice sour. “Throwing away happiness with two hands, and you won’t even defend me to India….”

Rhett paused.

“Happiness with two hands?” He prompted.

“Rhett told me he feels sorry for me,” she murmured, her head rolling to the side, eyebrows knitting together once more, her face looking distressed. “He should. Why do I let you poison me?”

“Poison you?” Rhett repeated once more. 

“You make me think of home,” she said, continuing as though she hadn’t heard him, though Rhett considered given the severity of her fever she probably hadn’t. He watched her tears suddenly dribble from her eyes, pooling at the bridge of her nose, staining the pillow bellow. “I haven’t felt like I was home since that barbecue at Twelve Oaks.” 

“That was a long time ago Scarlett,” Rhett said quietly. He couldn’t imagine feeling so lost, for such a long time. It sounded almost inconceivable to him. 

“I wish Rhett wanted me,” she murmured, flinching against an unseen pain. “The way you want me. You won’t have me, but you want me, and he can have me, and he doesn’t want me at all.”

“Want you?” Rhett asked quietly, anger suddenly flooding him.

“I’m trying,” she whimpered, continuing her monologue, shrouded in a mist of deliriousness. She sounded broken. “To keep myself pure like you said, to keep his coarse hands from me, but oh Ashley, please don’t hate me, but I miss him so.”

“You do?” Rhett prompted, voice soft as he tried to keep the ripples of anger spilling out. 

“And you say he coarsens me but… oh Ashley… he knows me, he really does… he even knows about things I’ll never tell you, terrible things I’ve done… and he doesn’t turn me away… and besides, I fear I was always coarse…” she muttered, her sentences running into one another, her voice slurred by tears and illness. “I miss him, even if it makes me coarse, even if it makes you hate me.” 

“Then you should say so,” Rhett said, trying to swallow his rage at what she had said. 

“He’ll laugh at me,” she cried pitifully, shoulders giving a timid shake at the shock of emotion that hit her tone. “He doesn’t really want me at all. He has Belle Whatley, you have Melly, and I have no one.”

She dissolved to pathetic sobs beneath him and he found himself unable to speak to her. 

Instead, he scooped her into his arms and held her close, kissing her temple as she wracked against him. 

“I want you to feel home,” he said softly, trying to keep the hatred frothing into his tone. “If Ashley loved you he'd want you to feel home.”

“I want to love you, Ashley,” she murmured, her voice breaking, ignoring his words once more, unable to hold up her head. “But it’s so terribly hard and so terribly lonely.”

She choked on her next sob and he rocked her against him, kissing her forehead once more. He pulled her, so she splayed to his chest, her tear-soaked face pressed to his neck, her body limp and hot as he stroked her hair in an attempt to comfort her. 

“What would Rhett do if he knew?” He asked, softly guilty that he was having to prey on Scarlett in her most vulnerable to speak candidly with her. 

She sniffled, her skin burning against him.

“If he knew what, Ashley?” She murmured. 

“if he knew you missed him,” he asked quietly.

“He would turn on me,” she cried frantically, hiccoughing as she went. “He would be callous and cruel, oh Ashley you cannot tell him, I beg you! He hates me so, and I cannot have him cut me to ribbons again, I just don’t know if I can survive it-” 

A fit of coughing interrupted her and Rhett rubbed circles into her back until it passed, shushing her. 

“I won’t,” he whispered to her ear, curling her to him in his arms. “I won’t.”

She soothed under his kisses and his touch, finally falling into a restless and hot sleep. She was exhausted, her body burning against him, but Rhett could only feel the burn of hot rage that Ashley had told her to keep herself pure.

Pure from her husband? Throw her happiness away for the whisper of love? A whisper that the coward Ashley Wilkes would never give her. Ashley would have her dangle instead, waiting for Melly to die or himself to screw the courage, though Rhett doubted that Ashley would ever be brave enough. 

What an intolerably cruel thing to do to Scarlett. He imagined her being alone once again, no home big or small enough to comfort her. He loosened his grip on her and let her slowly roll back on to her pillow. He watched her brow twitch in her rest, her fingers trembling as the still clutched his shirt. He kept his arms about her, his body turning to lean into her and scoop her close once more. He hadn’t held her like that since the night they had fled to Tara and she had wept against him, a frightened little girl. 

He’d slept restlessly and awoke well before she did, watching her the next day in the cool morning light, lain across him, fast asleep.

When she awoke it was slow but lucid, her eyes taking him in slowly. 

“Good morning Scarlett,” he said quietly. She yawned, snuggling closer to him. “Do you remember last night?” 

She froze. 

“Why Rhett?” She asked quietly, her voice hoarse before panic took her gaze. “Oh no, I didn’t sick on you-”

He interrupted her with a chuckle.

“Not at all Scarlett,” he hummed. “You were just very unwell, and I was wondering if you could remember.”

She blushed and shook her head. 

“I remember you took care of me?” She said, sounding unsure. 

“That I did,’ he said. “And might I say, I played a mighty good nurse.”

She nodded quietly, her body still painfully stiff and sore. She winced slightly, turning to adjust against his broad chest. She looked up timidly and he held her closer for a moment.

“Thank you, Rhett,” she said quietly, eyes fluttering up to him in a moment of such soft-heartedness he could barely believe it was his Scarlett. 

“My my Scarlett,” he teased softly. “You must be terribly unwell.” 

“I feel just dreadful,” she softly complained, letting her head drop once more. “And I bet I wouldn’t feel so terrible if you hadn’t dragged me to that God-forsaken party.”

“I couldn’t agree more my dear, but you showed all of Atlanta that India Wilkes is a liar,” he soothed. She nodded against him, her peaky skin touching his chest. He rolled her to her back and lay above her, smoothing some of the damp strands of black hair from her forehead. 

“You’ll be better in no time,” he murmured, briefly pressing his lips to her forehead. She looked up at him and let her eyes flutter closed as he gently soothed her, hands running across her damp hair. “I’m going to make sure of it.” 

“Damn India and damn the rest,” she murmured. 

He chuckled and nodded in agreement, stroking her hair once more. His mind wandered to her complaints of a world without a home, of Ashley, of her crushing loneliness. He wanted to strangle the life out of Ashley, but instead, he pushed down those thoughts and thought only of an opportunity. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt he had peered into her mind. She had gifted him the perfect way to win her heart, and if he played his hand well, he may not only make it back into her bed as he already had, but into her heart, and perhaps one day even into her mind. 

“Do you like living here at Peachtree my dear?” he asked. She looked up lazily, her hand coming to rest on the forearm that rested across her belly. 

“Of course,” she murmured. 

“Does it feel like home?”

“Where else would be?” She snapped, sounding annoyed. He chuckled softly.

“Tara?” He offered. She nodded thoughtfully at what he said.

“Perhaps when you’re feeling better we will go for a visit,” he hummed, pressing his lips to her temple as he thought aloud. She nodded softly, letting out a soft sigh, enjoying the feeling of his hands comforting her. 

She would never admit it to him but she had missed him so much. So many of the people who she had loved had left the world behind them, passing on and leaving her colder and lonelier than she ever thought possible. 

Rhett was a rogue and a scoundrel, and he was no gentleman, but his hands were cooling and calming against the fever that burned her bare. She had never had a husband who could soothe her the way that Rhett could, he was second only to her beloved mother. 

She shamefully considered that not even Ashley could not comfort her the way that Rhett could. 

She sighed against his hands and she heard him chuckle, pulling her against him. 

“I’ve missed this Scarlett.”

Her eyes fluttered up, brows knitting together. His dark eyes watched for her response intently and she watched him distrustfully. He softly kissed her jawline instead, pulling her against him as he turned on to his back, her against his chest once more.

“I’ll sweat on you,” she complained, weakly pushing at his shirt. He chuckled and shook his head, holding her tightly but kindly. 

“I am your husband,” he said with a firm yet gentle voice. “I don’t want you sweating against anyone else.”

The words stilled her, and she tentatively lowered herself to him, her hands wrapping his shirt as she lay against him, looking up carefully. She waited to see the cruel joke in his eyes but there was none.

“Are you teasing me, Rhett Butler?” She asked slowly, watching him suspiciously for a response. 

“I may be many things,” Rhett chuckled. “But I am no dirty fighter, if I was going to challenge you, Scarlett, I wouldn’t do it when you are unable to hold your head up.”

She nodded slowly but agreed, settling against him as he pulled the blanket up to cover her. She was asleep within minutes, the small exchange exhausting her tired body. He’d left her to rest, overseeing instead the needs of the children and ordering Pork to tell Ashley he’d need to handle the mill and the shop. He couldn’t face Ashley himself, unsure that his fists would be able to remain in his pockets. 

Melly had arrived at midday with broth, but Scarlett was too tired to raise her head to drink it. Rhett watched her carefully by the doorway, Melly sat on the bed as she squeezed her dear Scarlett’s hand.

“India is a rat,” Scarlett repeated and Melly softly shushed her, kissing her friends’ fingers and smiling tenderly. 

Rhett had followed Melly out, who had insisted that they were to drink some of the broth she had brought Scarlett.

“You’ll need your strength, Captain Butler” Melly soothed. 

They’d eaten in the dining room in silence for a while, Rhett insisting she had some too for some bazar reason. The idea that she would watch him like a mother would watch a child rubbed him the wrong way. 

“Does it bother you?” He asked suddenly against the silence, unsure of why he had let the words leave his mouth. 

“Does what bother me, Captain Butler?” She asked pleasantly, putting her clean spoon down gently. 

“The way Scarlett and Ashley are with one other?”

There was a silence for a moment. They were collaborators in that second, two compatriots on the same side, behind enemy lines. 

He waited for Melly to lie. To tell him she didn’t know, that she didn’t see it. 

But instead, she smiled. 

“Captain Butler,” she said softly. “Think of the first girl you ever loved, when you were sixteen years old.”

Rhett Butler thought hesitantly of the woman his father had bought for him when she was sixteen. She was curvy and soft and had the darkest eyes he had ever seen, and he was convinced he loved her by the end of the night, convinced that nothing had ever felt that good or could ever make him feel that good ever again.

Melly watched the thoughts swirl in his head, ignorant of what they were but seeing the understanding across his eyes.

“Now imagine you saw her almost every day,” Melly said with a knowing smile. 

Rhett almost laughed, remembering that less than a week later he had snuck away with his friend’s older sister, and she had made him feel just as good and the memory of the curvy vixen was all but forgotten. 

He felt his heart pang for Scarlett that she had had to stay so near the man who had told her he wanted her, that she should stay pure, that dangled that hope in front of her. 

He couldn’t forgive Scarlett, but he certainly could understand. 

“Marriage and babies change these things,” Melly warmly told Rhett. 

“Not Scarlett,” he responded flatly, anger coiling in his belly.

“You’re so wrong,” Melly soothed. “She loves you a great deal, more than she knows.” 

He wanted to tell Melly what Scarlett had confessed in her fever, that she was still being asked by Ashley to keep the semblance of intimacy alight, that Ashley thought of Scarlett in the way that Rhett thought of the girls at Belles. 

But Rhett didn’t tell Melly. 

Momentarily satisfying, eternally regrettable. It would be pointless to hurt a woman like Melly. 

“Thank you, Miss Melly,” he said with a fresh-faced smile as he squashed the need for vengeance, calmly taking her in. “You’re truly are the kindest woman I have ever known.”

Melly smiled and affectionately rubbed the back of her hand, the calm and soft and so very wonderful action soothing him immensely. 

He had gone straight back to Scarlett’s side when Melly left to find her burning up once more. She lay against the sheets, sweating straight through them as she curled to herself, panting labouredly in her rest, her brow knitted together, a hand screwed tightly to the sheet below. 

He felt a stab of anger at himself for taking so long with Melly in the dining room. He mustered the breath to yell out for Mammy, but he pushed it down. Instead, he took the cloth from the water at the side of her bed and softly begun to pat against her forehead, her neck, her décolletage. Her eyes opened weakly and she looked up at him, looking dizzy and drowned by her fever.

“Rhett?” She asked softly. He hummed his response, continue to carefully drag the cool water across her fiery skin.

“You’re fine my dear,” he soothed her. She nodded weakly, her hand peeled from the sheet to grab the cuff of his coat, causing him to still. 

“Why are you doing this?” She asked, sounding tearful once again.

“Doing what Scarlett?” He asked softly, trying to make his voice sound warm.

“This,” she whimpered. “I… why are you-.”

She was interrupted by a fresh coughing spell, wincing once more against the movement of her ribs, the ache in her joints.

“Doing what Scarlett?” He repeated calmly after she gained her breath again. She looked up, eyes watering as she stared at him.

“Why are you being nice to me?” She asked exhaustedly. 

The question cut him down, his hand stilling as she looked up at him. He saw nothing but hurt and hesitation in her eyes, unable to see the usual cruelty his wife came with. Instead, he saw the glint of terror in her eyes, the overwhelming fear that sickness brought her. He watched her glistening skin, realising the last time she had heard that someone was sick like this would have been her mother, who had ended up laying lifeless in their reception room. Rhett internally winced at that but held his nerve. He knew for a fact she wasn’t dying and that her fear was baseless, but he also understood that usually, his kindness held sharp edges. He would ordinarily hold her, only to harm her. It was hard to admit to himself that she was responding aptly. She stared up, closing her eyes once more as she coughed, whimpering as her body shook once more.

Rhett slowly sat down and picked her up, cradling her as he sat against the headboard. She tensed for a moment, but he continued to carefully wipe down her skin, gently taking care of her fever. 

He gently hiked up her chemise, running the cool cloth down her legs as she sighed out against him, the relief momentarily drowning out her fear.

“I’m doing this,” he murmured against her hair. “Because I am your husband. And you are my wife.” 

She didn’t respond but she softened, her body calming down against him as he softly rocked her and soothed her once more.

“You always say I only do as I please,” he murmured. “Well… I’m going to take care of you Scarlett... because it pleases me.”

She looked up timidly to see the jest but there was none. He looked at her warmly and calmly, with the same kind expression he had seen him give Bonnie, Ella and Wade. He had looked at her like that an eternity ago when they had been in New Orleans. She dropped her head once more, resting it his chest. 

“Thank you, Rhett,” she said quietly, her hand coming up to twist against his shirt. 

Rhett Butler promised himself in the quiet, the laboured and shallow breathe of his beautiful wife the sound that his heartbeat along to, that he would prove to Melly and Scarlett and everyone else, including Ashley, that he could be a husband that Scarlett could turn to. 

He would make her feel home again.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you've enjoyed! If you have any prompts about Rhett & Scarlett, please comment below and I'll do my best to write it :)


End file.
